UL fires up global expansion under first non-insider CEO

Safety switch: Loring W. Knoblauch, the first outsider to lead Underwriters Laboratories, will push its overseas presence.

Underwriters Laboratories Inc. is changing leaders at a time when the global economy is testing the non-profit safety certification firm's ability to keep its UL label relevant.

Loring W. Knoblauch, a 59-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer with a wealth of international business experience, last week became the ninth president and CEO  and the only outsider  to head Northbrook-based UL in its 107-year history.

He succeeds 41-year veteran G. Thomas Castino, who will become vice-chairman. UL went from $195 million in revenues in 1990, when Mr. Castino became CEO, to more than $500 million projected for this year. During the same time, the nation's largest safety testing lab went from one foreign subsidiary, in Hong Kong, to 22 today.

But UL will soon be adding more units. As trade barriers fall, manufacturers are demanding universal standards so that a safety certification by a single testing lab will enable them to sell goods more easily around the world.

"UL is not as well-known in Asia or Europe as it is in the U.S.," says Mr. Knoblauch, who speaks fluent Spanish and some Japanese. "Our biggest challenges are international expansion and continuing to attract and keep the best and brightest people."

The shift to international standards is "forcing them to compete effectively," says Kent Whitfield, a former UL engineer and now senior project manager of Spire Solar Chicago, a solar energy systems manufacturer. "They are an extremely powerful organization, but they need to respond to customers' needs."

While UL is synonymous with safety in the U.S., it ranks internationally far behind France's Bureau Veritas or Geneva-based Societé Générale de Surveillance.

"We have 84 to 85 international locations," says Mr. Castino. "They have hundreds. We will need to have alliances, mergers or acquisitions."

During two decades with New Jersey-based Honeywell International Inc., Mr. Knoblauch handled nine major mergers and acquisitions as president of Honeywell Asia Pacific in Hong Kong and vice-president of international business development for the parent firm.

Prior to joining UL, he was president and CEO of Talon Automated Equipment Co. in Detroit and president of international operations at Connecticut-based Hubbell Inc.

In a changeover even Mr. Knoblauch concedes is "pretty unusual," Mr. Castino says his job is to be "just down the hall" to assist the new CEO, both internally and externally, until he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 65 in two years.

With such a long transition, the possibility of second-guessing is a "tough one to answer," Mr. Castino says. "My involvement will slowly fade as Loring's increases. . . . I think I can do that."

Says Mr. Knoblauch: "It was probably a good idea for UL to go outside, but that kind of transition is never easy. (Mr. Castino) will help educate me. We don't have to have an overnight transition."